What’s done is done. What I’d simply like to know is the why. Maybe it’s in this article somewhere, but I gave up halfway. Probably just too sleepy atm. Someday I’ll read a source that gives a sensible why. Because what I’ve heard never really made sense. Why keep so much intact and change one thing so drastically?
It’s not in the article, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen an “official” answer, but…I do think “because we can” is a valid answer. It was valid when they did it with TMP, and it was valid the subsequent times they tweaked the makeup.
In terms of how it served the story being told…I can see the appeal of having more alien-looking, “scarier” Klingons in a season that was ultimately about the dangers of xenophobia.
if they ever do an oral history of the development of that series, it will be a juicy read.
I agree. I’ve never been interested in meeting any of the cast of any of the shows, buuut if I got the chance to meet any of them I would absolutely choose disco so I can ask how it went down.
Except blue isn’t scary anymore after the Andorians. I can only fathom that they thought brown Klingons look like black Klingons and people will think that’s racist.
Oh how I wish people stopped separating humans in races and just stopped thinking in races and colors at all.
“There is only one race: the human race” - Robert Sobukwe, South African anti-apartheid activist
I kept waiting for a eugenics storyline where the Federation tries to make Klingons more human and turns them into TOS Klingons, thereby completing the narrative justification circle.
If I remember correctly that’s kind of what happened. The Klingons used augment genes from Earth’s eugenics wars (the ones used to make Khan and others) to try and create their own augmented Klingons. It went wrong and the result was human looking Klingons and it somehow became a transmissible virus. That’s where the TOS looking looking ones came from. All of this is retcon of course.
Edit: What I wrote was pretty close. Here is a link to the Klingon page on memory alpha. The explanation is just after the start of the “History and Politics” section.
What’s done is done. What I’d simply like to know is the why. Maybe it’s in this article somewhere, but I gave up halfway. Probably just too sleepy atm. Someday I’ll read a source that gives a sensible why. Because what I’ve heard never really made sense. Why keep so much intact and change one thing so drastically?
It’s not in the article, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen an “official” answer, but…I do think “because we can” is a valid answer. It was valid when they did it with TMP, and it was valid the subsequent times they tweaked the makeup.
In terms of how it served the story being told…I can see the appeal of having more alien-looking, “scarier” Klingons in a season that was ultimately about the dangers of xenophobia.
Makes perfect sense. But why not invent a whole new alien? Why modify an existing piece of canon (again)?
That would be a question for Bryan Fuller. He’s recently started to talk about this stuff, so maybe we’ll get an answer some day.
One thing I do think someone said along the line is that they wanted to establish why the Klingons and Starfleet hate each other so much in TOS.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if they ever do an oral history of the development of that series, it will be a juicy read.
I agree. I’ve never been interested in meeting any of the cast of any of the shows, buuut if I got the chance to meet any of them I would absolutely choose disco so I can ask how it went down.
Except blue isn’t scary anymore after the Andorians. I can only fathom that they thought brown Klingons look like black Klingons and people will think that’s racist.
Oh how I wish people stopped separating humans in races and just stopped thinking in races and colors at all.
“There is only one race: the human race” - Robert Sobukwe, South African anti-apartheid activist
I kept waiting for a eugenics storyline where the Federation tries to make Klingons more human and turns them into TOS Klingons, thereby completing the narrative justification circle.
Instead…
If I remember correctly that’s kind of what happened. The Klingons used augment genes from Earth’s eugenics wars (the ones used to make Khan and others) to try and create their own augmented Klingons. It went wrong and the result was human looking Klingons and it somehow became a transmissible virus. That’s where the TOS looking looking ones came from. All of this is retcon of course.
Edit: What I wrote was pretty close. Here is a link to the Klingon page on memory alpha. The explanation is just after the start of the “History and Politics” section.
I was honestly thinking/waiting for the same explanation. Haha.